pluviosa | [Open] I'm On A Boat

[Open] I'm On A Boat

Who: Casper and ???
What: Boat shenanigans! Digging! Trees!
Where: Several locations
When: Day 3-4ish
Warnings: One prompt has a dead body, one thread is getting into some serious/dark subjects.

Jungle Cruise

[Casper does not have many weapons - certainly not the kinds of powerful magical options other people on the ship have. But he's not out of all options. He heads down towards the bottom of the ship - or at least what he can reach. Deck 9 is about it, so he starts there.]

[The water is a problem. The water might be too much of a problem for him to handle - so he freezes it. At least a good chunk around him is frozen, so anyone coming down there might need to be careful not to slip. That done, he starts digging. He doesn't have a shovel or any tools so it's just him pushing at dirt trying to find some kind of bottom.]

[This is probably not going to work. Come either mock him or help him?] (See next prompt.)

Kill it with Fire

[Casper has been digging and he absolutely does not like what he's found. He's read enough horror books and seen enough horror movies to know that letting this thing spread is an incredibly bad idea. He keeps looking around for anyone, covered in dirt and mud and probably other things with his hair all wild.]

Do you have fire magic? Or the ability to make a fire that's really hot?

[He needs a hand, because a campfire is not going to do it. He needs extremely high temperatures in an extremely controlled environment.]

On the Treetops

[He likes to be up high. Some of these trees are gigantic so he's having fun climbing them. It's very much an easy thing for him - he's just scrambling up them and jumping from tree to tree. He's making a lot of noise though so he might be being too disruptive. Either way he's having fun and it's not like there's a whole crowd to bother.]

[Occasionally he rests, and stares out at the barren wasteland around them. What could be out there? He wants to know, but he also doesn't want to die again.]

Night Sky

[Casper is enjoying himself just chilling out on the deck at night. There are no constellations that he's familiar with, so he starts making up new ones.]

That one's the Cat. That one's the Rabbit. ... Maybe that spot on the moon is the Monkey? It's definitely not the Bunny.

[He's mostly talking to himself - Bob is asleep in his hoodie pocket - but he'd welcome company, if you'd like.]

[Wildcard]

[Got another idea? Either grab me on Discord (artematthew) or Plurk (

atrypical).]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Huh? Oh. I can sprout wings - or talons, or whatever - by channeling my power through Bob. It's a lot of fun. I don't know if I could carry someone while flying - probably? I'm not sure." What's a filter? Never knew 'er.

"Yeah. Yeah I definitely saw Super fucking Mario. And I mean in the great multiverse of whatever maybe? I was mostly a books and movies kid. I never really got into anime and stuff... not even that one with a lot of yelling that all the guys seemed to like. And video games were basically just 'whatever I could find online' since buying a console was definitely out of the question, and I only have a cell phone because my dad wanted it to call me for work whenever. Which basically just meant yelling at me to get home..." ... Anyway.

On a slightly more positive note... "I've seen people uploading video game stuff to YouTube?" He says it... not confidently. "But I dunno if that site's gonna stick around, I've seen a lot of places come and go."

“Oh, sick, that sounds really neat. We could fly together! I mean, there’s not a ton of space to do much, but like. Man I do not take advantage of being able to fly as often as I should, I’m always too busy working. And I wrote cultivators using fucking carriages and horses most of the time because I’m a boring idiot, so we barely even fly to travel.”

“I am, was, like a horrible otaku, I was all over anime and manga and video games, but I also like, am from China and from later than you, so the availability was probably better.”

“Oh dude Google bought YouTube and it is huge now, people make bank uploading themselves playing video games. They get like, brand sponsorships and shit, it’s wild. God imagine if a brand sponsored my shitty webnovel. It would have to be like—a condom brand or something, and oh my god I’d have to write Luo Binghe using a condom that is the funniest concept in the world, I have to tell Cucum— oh. Right, I can’t tell him about the concept of his husband’s dick selling condoms, he’s not on the mystery leg boat. Anyway.” Airplane might have gotten a little used to having a transmigrator bro around. “Uh. Yeah, I dunno, anything could be fiction. Scary Ouji Lawyer got mad at me for trying to avoid saying she might be fictional, but I don’t want to give anyone, like, an existential crisis? I’ve known I was fictional for sixty years! But it probably hits different in these circumstances, yknow?”

"Yeah. I mean, now that you don't have to work... you can have some actual fun with your abilities." Flying on a sword is pretty neat. Isn't there a comic book character who surfs between planets? He can't quite remember.

Hm. "Makes sense. Isn't there a lot of censorship there, though? ... Though I guess people find ways around it." Also what. Okay there was some information in there and then Shang Qinghua went off on a whole tangent and... Casper just puts a hand on the top of the other's head to calm him for a moment before taking it away. "Yeah, it probably does. It... feels impolite to say. As for being fictional..." He sighs and closes his eyes.

"I can feel the wind. I can hear the breeze through the trees. I can smell the leaves. I don't know what makes something 'real', but isn't this real enough? This moment we have? And if the moment's real, why can't we be?" He blinks slowly and smiles, his cheeks coloring slightly. "Maybe that's corny, but if what we experience is all we have then... I think we're real enough, based on that. Being fictional doesn't mean it's not 'real' in a way? If they experience things like you do..."

"Fun... how novel. I've had to work my ass off this whole time to make sure I achieved what the system demanded I do, and then that required being in positions where a lot of people are relying on me, and... there's always more work. When it's not Cang Qiong, it's the Northern Desert, or Luo Binghe's court."

"Yeah, there's censorship, but plenty of stuff is like, inoffensive enough to make it through, or there's like, ways to get through the firewall. But we get a lot of imported media anyway. Got." It's weird to think about China as sort of frozen in time for him in 2015--time has moved on for him, subjectively, but judging by Cucumber-bro's arrival, it hasn't gone forward back home at all.

Casper's hand on his head is super effective, Shang Qinghua's jaw snaps shut until he removes it again. He blinks and tries to get his train of thought back to something other than how warm Casper's hands are and whether his cheeks feel hot.

He smiles at Casper, ducking his head a little. God the younger man is cute when he blushes. "Real enough to carry on with, anyway. It's not like I haven't been fighting all these years to stay alive, because it sure feels like a life, even knowing that I'm being Shang Qinghua and he's some asshole I made up. I'm still walking around breathing and sleeping and... feeling." Feeling quite differently than usual, right now.

"Sounds complicated. Both of those things." He grins sidelong at the other. "What do you think myths are? What do you think gods are? Something someone just made up. And then they believed in it enough to make it real."

He'd nudge the older man but he doesn't want to startle him out of the tree. "And you seem plenty real to me. We may not be able to move the world as much as we'd like - well you can't anymore, at least - but if someone can believe that there's goat piss rivers in the underworld hard enough to make it real, we can maybe try to believe in ourselves enough to count as real, too."

"I guess... I had a lot of readers. Maybe that was enough to make Proud Immortal Demon Way real enough to live in. And having me and Cucumber-bro in there... I don't know if that made it even realer. I know the people feel... very real when you can see them, touch them." It was hard to know that Shen Qingqiu's original goods was abusing Luo Binghe and not do anything about it--knowing that little Binghe was a person with feelings and not just a stallion protagonist.

"You seem very real to me. And--wait, hold up, goat piss rivers? What the fuck kind of myth is that?!" Train of thought: lost.

"Mm." ... Right. He probably shouldn't have said that casually - maybe that's a lesser-known myth? He's never sure where the line between myth and reality is anymore. "Supposedly my mother's Hall is clean and pleasant for honored guests. ... I was not an honored guest."

Anyway. "But I mean, the point stands. Someone believed that shit - so to speak - and now it's real. So I try not to worry about the line between reality and... fiction, I guess? If it's real to you, it's real enough."

"...In your mother's hall." Well, that just says a whole lot right there, doesn't it. "Well, fuck her and her goat piss rivers, then, she doesn't deserve you." Shang Qinghua doesn't know like, anything about Norse myth, but he is confident on that point.

"That's a very like, zen approach to it. I like... I mean, I've known since I was reborn with the system talking to me that I was living the life of my own character. So it's like... there's only so real I could let myself believe in, for a long time, because it's... not a very nice world, and a lot of bad things happen, and they made it a more interesting story for the readers, or they were like the tropes, but now they're happening to people, but I can't do anything about it because the system will punish me, but it's my fault because I'm the one who wrote those plot points and decided that this person would die and that person should be abused, and--" he is clearly working himself into a long and anxious and increasingly self-loathing rant about something he usually doesn't let himself think about too hard.

"... She doesn't take in the honored dead. It's the outcasts and the lowly, the ones who didn't die in battle or who were good enough for the other gods to take. Her hall's not for people who did great things in life. So..." He shrugs. That includes him - he definitely didn't die honorably enough for one of the other gods to even give him so much as a glance.

Casper looks down at the ground, grateful he doesn't have a fear of heights. "Sometimes bad things happen to people. Maybe it's your fault and maybe it's not. Maybe it's their fault for not being stronger." His voice is... far away. He barely even realizes that he's talking. "You couldn't have known. I... if you don't know you're hurting real people how could you have done it differently?"

He thinks about his father and the way he had to tiptoe around in the house. He doesn't remember how it started, only that it did. Nights and days of work and running to help ghosts and school - where no one liked him either - and just...

It had to have been him. There's no way it can't be. Something he did or didn't do...

"You'd think you being her kid would mean something, but I guess that's parents for you." It's not like his valued him that much, in either life.

"I would have written... something very different if I had known it would be real, or that I would be in it. I..." Casper looks... off. Shang Qinghua reaches out tentatively and covers the younger man's hand with his own. He doesn't know how to be like, comforting or grounding or anything, all he has going for him is that he's here. "I... don't think it's anyone's fault for not being stronger. I think most people are as strong as they can be, and sometimes there's... too much for it. Like... my king is like, the second strongest character in the book, but he still nearly died when his uncle dumped him in the human world as a kid, and again when he was hit with the Ling Hua dart, if I hadn't saved him." Is he saying anything remotely useful? Probably not! But all he knows how to do is talk! "...Are you okay?"

"Mm." He doesn't really respond when his hand is covered other than to close his eyes. "... I don't know. I just... I get hurt so often that I'm just numb to it. Mocked, abandoned, shoved from thing to thing with no regard for what I want to do. People say jump, I say how high. People say 'do this' and I do. I just... I want to please people. But they don't... they don't care about me. I'm just a tool. And I know that. I've accepted it."

And that's the problem, isn't it? "But everyone around me here keeps telling me I'm not. But I've been one my whole life! I don't... I don't know how to live without being used by other people. Ghosts, humans, a mage, other Scions... I've been backstabbed and killed and nearly gotten... sexually attacked. But that's okay, isn't it? Because I'm not a person, I'm just a tool to be thrown at enemies and used by allies. ... I wouldn't blame you if you did that, too. I'm useful, so just... use me if you want." He's not lying, as far as it's detectable. He genuinely believes these things, even as depressed as they make him look.

"So I guess it doesn't matter if I'm okay. No one ever cares how I feel and... I don't know why that would change."

Fuck, he is so not qualified for this. Fuck. Casper’s self esteem might actually be worse than his. “I don’t want to use you. I— all I’ve tried to be to my sect and my king is ‘useful enough to keep alive’ and even if I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t want— I don’t want to just use anyone. But especially not you, because you don’t treat me like I’m just a thing to be used. Even here, there’s—I mean, I offered to gather information for her, she’s not a bad person for taking me up on it, that’s all I’m good at is spying and logistics, and I’m not good at—this. People. But I… I do care how you feel. I don’t know how to help, but I do want you to be happy. I like you because you’re Casper, and you’re funny and nice and you even put up with how much I talk and you… I like you as a person.” He squeezes Casper’s hand a little bit.

"I don't think you would but I wouldn't blame you if you did. ... I'm just..." He shakes his head and leans against the other, seeming to snap out of it a little. "I just... I don't know how to live. On my own. Not... being used. I've never been on my own, and I'm not saying that I'm totally on my own now but I'm... away from the grasp of my parents."

His powers work but he's pretty sure he can't contact them. He's... free, in a way. And it's terrifying to try to make his own decisions. "I don't have a goal or a job or anything right now and I just... I've always had those? And it's not... I... I feel lost." Not the same kind of lost that he feels when he tries to come up with words when he's looking at Shang Qinghua, but still.

"You've lived on your own. You're at least able to be independent. I'm just... I'm a godsdamned tactical missile of a person at this point. A wrecking ball. I can command people and corpses to do what I want, I could freeze this whole tree solid, I can lift half a ton. I'm dangerous and people at home know it. That's why they use me. That's why... I don't know how to live."

"I would blame me. You're not... you don't deserve to be just used. And I wouldn't want to... I'm not a good person, but I don't want to be that kind of bad one. I never-- I don't want to do anything to you that you're not comfortable with."

"I-- honestly I haven't been thinking too hard about the fact that the system can't reach here, because I don't know what I'll do when it sinks in, even though I've been saying all kinds of shit I would have been punished for, like, I told you I'm a transmigrator. But... having to make it up is hard. You're not--it's not that weird that you're lost. Kids with like, controlling parents, it's really common for them to lose it once they get out on their own and no one is telling them what to do." His parents were sort of the opposite, but he's not unfamiliar with the concept.

"And I--I guess I've kind of been trying to slot myself into what's familiar, too. Offering information to people so they think I'm useful enough to protect or not hurt. It's-- easy. I... I don't know if I understand, but..." But he wants to. He wants to be able to help so goddamn badly, seeing Casper like this hurts.

"And I mean, I'm-- used to being around dangerous people. I'm a cultivator, my martial siblings are all good enough to become peak lords. Zhangmen-shixiong could fight Tianlang-jun to a standstill. Liu-shidi is the War God of Bai Zhan and he doesn't even like me. Luo Binghe is like maybe literally undefeatable and he keeps looking at me like he's going to murder me for taking any of his husband's attention. And my king could freeze this tree solid too, could freeze me solid, and I've spent decades trying to be useful enough that he won't. I... you're just a person. Sometimes people are dangerous. Even me, I have a sword and decent cultivation, I could do a fair bit of damage, I just don't like fighting, and I'm a coward, and I'd prefer no one ever see me as a threat." When they don't see you as a threat they're less likely to decide they need to remove the threat. "But I'm not... you're not scary to me."

"I don't know how to-- fucking, I don't know. I don't know how to help. But... I don't want you to do anything for me but be my... my friend. If you-- if you want. Only if you want." He's not much to write home about in terms of friend material, after all. And he's only ever really had the one before.

"... Yeah I just... I don't know. I spent sixteen and a half years just... knowing I was weird and knowing vampires were a thing but not why and having a dad who wanted to track my every move, and then suddenly I get told I have a mother and she's got half a rotting face. And then I get thrown into an adventure for a year or so, where I get told that not only do I have a brother but he's - fuck, what's that one comic?"

He has to think for a moment, not an easy task when his mind is racing. "Like Captain America or whatever? But a failed version. And then I'm told I have to kill him, and then my dad shows up and kills him and surprise! He's actually a powerful mage of a kind I had no idea existed and that he's actually pretty old and he worked for the fucking Nazis in World War II because my pantheon was on the side that was stupid. Even though I've been told 'oh, Loki just wanted to hand Gungnir to someone to see what would happen' and suddenly Hitler got Ideas and Loki was horrified and of course that has to be my grandfather so then I get like, secondhand guilt? Which isn't fair or useful?"

Casper's just rambling but he can't stop. "So like. My whole family is dangerous. And people should see me as a threat. I know none of that stuff is my fault but it kind of makes me want to just... go away into the mountains or whatever until I die except I can't because I'm immune to the cold now." He throws his hands up in exasperation, taking Shang Qinghua's with him. "Can't be poisoned or get sick from anything I eat either. And even if I did I'd get thrown back into stuff and - I don't know, I already don't even have my own soul in my body and I just... my life is a lot? Everything is a lot? I don't know what to do. You're older than me. More experience. Please."

He turns to the other, tearing up a little. "... Please tell me what to do."

Okay. Nazi Captain America and... okay. That was a lot of information at once. Casper has had a bad fucking time in a pretty short span.

"I... I'm older, yeah, but I'm not... fuck. I don't want to like, give you orders. All I've ever known how to do is just... keep going? And try and... figure out how to survive in whatever situation. My parents don't want me around, so I'll try and make my own money. There's a demon killing my martial siblings, so I'll hug his thighs and cry and swear eternal loyalty so he maybe won't kill me too. I... I don't think I'm a very good role model, I'm... everyone knows I'm a traitor, now that Luo Binghe is the Demon Emperor, everyone knows I'm Mobei-Jun's spy. I'm a rat and I always have been. But... rats are pretty good at surviving. I don't... I'm just saying things I'm always just saying things I don't, I don't know how to be helpful, usually no one wants to talk to me at all much less ask me for help with anything other than getting intelligence on military movements or like their roof fixed, and..."

This is awkward up a tree, but he's pretty sure he could use a sword seal to get Kao Ci out in time to catch them if they fell, and-- it feels more useful than running his mouth. He leans over and wraps his arms around Casper. "I don't know why we're here. Maybe someone will turn up and tell us why we were kidnapped and then we have a new job and we don't have to worry about making it up ourselves. But... right now, at least, we just... we can pretend it's a vacation from the things controlling us, I guess. And the... the company is good."

"... Surviving is good enough sometimes. And I didn't even manage that." He leans into the touch, loosening up a little bit. "The company is good..."

Breathe, Casper. Breathe. "Sorry. I shouldn't have put all of that on you. You don't... you shouldn't have to deal with that too because you're kind enough to be, like... secondhand traumatized? Even without all of the details. You... you can be better than you think you are. System or no."

But can he?

"I mean, I didn't manage it either. I died because I spilled my ramen, like, it was completely pathetic." Hesitantly, he rubs Casper's back a little, trying to be comforting.

"You don't have to... it's okay. I don't know how to be like... helpful, but if you want to talk, I can listen? I'm not good for very much, but I can manage that. You're-- a lot better than me, but if you want me around for whatever reason, I'm here." No one has really ever actually wanted him around, not even Cucumber-bro, but... as long as Casper will put up with him, he'll be there.

"I... died at the hands of someone from my group. He shot my leg off. I was trying to prevent him from stealing a car that had kids in it and injecting them with gods know what? And he won the fight. Obviously. So whatever I tried to do didn't matter."

Did anything he did matter?

"I'm just... I'm trying to - like. You're - you and a few others here are the only people who've ever wanted me around? So it's like... what do I even do? My mother wants me as a chess piece, that's it. You... actually give a shit about me."

"Well, apparently that guy was the fucking worst, so it... matters that you know you aren't the fucking worst? Sometimes you... can't stop things. Like I--I tried to make the Immortal Alliance Conference less deadly than in the book, and it ended up being worse and also my king threw me into a tree for trying to protect my protagonist son, which, I should have known better, my bad, and anyway there's no way I could have precluded the Eternal Abyss arc and it was stupid to try, but... the point is sometimes people are shitty and sometimes they're stronger than you and you can't do anything about it, but you can't help trying anyway? I guess? I... you wanted to help people. Because you're a good person. Even if you couldn't--I think it matters."

"I... yeah. I definitely give a shit about you, and I'm not used to people wanting me around either. But... we can at least stick together, then? Two guys fucked over by shit we can't control. I've... never met anyone like you."

"He was. Caspian was... terrible in many ways." He listens to Shang Qinghua and tries to focus. He's... he's not really following, he feels like he's missing a lot of context, but... he squeezes a little tighter in the hug.

"I've... I've never met anyone like you, either. Can I..." No. He turns his face away, flushing. For all he knows this guy has a relationship, and he mentioned a son and he's just... he doesn't want to be That Guy.

Casper squeezes back tighter, so maybe he's doing something right, or at least vaguely useful?

"Can you what?" Oblivious, population Shang Qinghua. But Casper is turning away and blushing and... "I can't imagine there's much of anything you might want to do that I'd object to. I mean, um. Pretend that didn't sound pathetic."

"No, I - you've got a whole... you... you said something about your son, and I'm sure you have someone waiting for you at home, and I... I don't want to mess everything up just because I'm a stupid teenager with a crush and I can't..."

He has to control his inhibitions. He pulls away a bit and moves like he's preparing to hop off the branch, never mind how hight up they are.

"I-- no, my protagonist son, like, because he's the protagonist of my book I made him and he's sort of metaphorically my son and I feel vaguely proprietary about him, but also I'm pretty sure he would kill me if I said that to his face, he doesn't like me anyway. I don't have--I mean, if anyone is waiting for me it's just my king waiting for a report from his spy, and-- crush?" His voice goes up into a squeak. "You-- you're so nice and heroic and handsome and, and I'm a pathetic old cowardly weirdo? You-- please don't jump off the branch, I'm pretty sure I could catch you, but--you-- crush? On me??"

"I -" He pauses, his brain backtracking onto what he just said and covering his face with his hands. "Oh my gods..." His voice is muffled and he can't seem to even look in the other's direction. "And you're not pathetic? And if you're a weirdo so what? I'm also a weirdo. And I'd be fine if I jumped off but..."

He tries to take a deep breath, but there's a lump in his throat. "I... I mean... yeah. You're one of the first people who was ever nice to me, and you're really cute and I don't... I don't care if you're older and - I mean it's not like it would look weird unless people knew about the age gap and - never mind. You probably don't even want to... I just met you and I'm already rushing into... gods, I'm so sorry."

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cw: victim blaming

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cw: mentions of abuse and sexual assault, dissociation

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cw: yes. (rot, nazis, suicidal ideation, filicide)

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cw: needle mention

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